John Dobovan

John Dobovan, photographed at Kulahaven Farms by Angie Diaz

I went back to school at age 65 actually. I was terrified. I'd figured all these young brains were gonna run circles around me, but you know what, all those years of experience count for something.

We caught up with John Dobovan, of Kulahaven Farms and Maui Hub, on April 21, 2021, a little over a year into the Covid pandemic.

John, can you start by introducing yourself?

Yeah, sure. I'm John Dobovan, the president and founder of Kulahaven Farms, LLC, Hawaii's first commercial Rainbow trout aquaponics farm. Located in Kula, Maui, we’ve been in operation for just about five years. I'm also one of the founding members and current President of the Maui Hub. I was also the President of the Haleakalā Chapter of Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United until December 2020.

Can you describe for me what was happening in your world before COVID and lead us into your experience during the Spring ‘20 shutdown?

That was a difficult period for us. When COVID hit, I had been in startup mode for five years because I had no template to build this farm. My previous experience in aquaponics was raising tilapia and Chinese catfish at my last commercial farm in Waimanalo. But those species are wildly different from rainbow trout. So, that was a huge learning curve. It took until last December before we finally had a functional system. When COVID hit, we were still struggling and trying to figure out how to make things work, what was wrong, and how to fix it. When it hit, we were already struggling, and then we lost half our business overnight.

I regularly sold rainbow trout to Mama's Fish House and one or two other restaurants here on Maui. When they shut down, that was half my income, maybe more. I've talked to a few other farmers. One farmer had to throw away 20,000 pounds of lettuce in one week. It was just heartbreaking. So, I started making some phone calls as HFUU Haleakalā Chapter President; our board had been talking about building a food hub for seven years, at least as long as I was on the board. In October (2019), before COVID, I had established a working committee to explore ways to build a food hub, but we weren't getting any traction.

As soon as COVID hit, I realized we had to jump into action.

I just happened to go down and talk to Ivan Jacobs, the owner of Sun Fresh. It's a mid-size distributor down in Kahului that I've been working with for several years. Ivan was in a similar boat; his whole business relied on restaurants, and he'd lost everything. He had a warehouse with 20 employees and a dozen trucks. So, he made a very kind and generous offer to let us use his warehouse and chiller. We just basically pay for what we use. We use his employees; we reimburse them for that. We use the trucks; we reimburse him for that.

Sun Fresh/ Maui Hub staff pack food orders. Photo by Maui Hub.

A group of us started meeting on Zoom two or three times a week, figuring out what we needed to do. Within three weeks of meeting, Maui's first Food Hub was up and running. It was shaky at first. We had terrible software, we bought the wrong stuff, and it took some time to figure out how to make it work. But we did, and it just grew. By July of last year, it became self-evident that we needed to take the Food Hub as a separate entity because it wasn't just a Farmer's Union effort. After consulting my wonderful Haleakala Chapter board of directors, and with the support of the other Maui chapter presidents and the help of the HFUU State organization, we created an independent non-profit corporation and set up the mauihub.org website.

Let's not just find a way to get food to people. Let's make it a better system.

We made it happen with the help of many; we had chefs, ranchers, and community members. Our group started with about 20 people and it slowly whittled down to about a half dozen, who really got it going. Autumn Ness was instrumental in getting us initial funding. Linda Love was also very instrumental. She's a retired attorney, and once we went independent, she got us a 501(c)(3) status. She got us set up with the SNAP program, and then the Food Hub just took off.

From the very first day, we knew we were on the right track. We were out there in the morning handing out bags of groceries, and people were just so appreciative, so thankful. It was a wonderful atmosphere of mutual appreciation, and we would thank everybody for supporting the farmers. When this first happened, I saw not only was there a need, but this was also a wonderful opportunity. I’m told the Chinese character for crisis is two words, one meaning danger, and the other opportunity. It was exactly that. It was a dangerous period, but it was also a wonderful opportunity to fix the broken system. Farmers make pennies on the retail dollar. As a farmer, I self-distribute, and I'm really lucky to get 50 cents of the retail dollar.

So, a group of us said, "Let's not just find a way to get food to people. Let's make it a better system." From the get-go, we decided we wanted to do two basic things: Connect farmers with consumers as directly as possible and give consumers the best deal possible on the freshest food we could find. That's what we've been doing. Although we were advised by various people that we needed to have a 50-100% markup on our products, we decided that's just replicating the same system we've got. We were determined to try to do something a little bit different.

Since the get-go, the Maui Hub has never operated with more than a 27% margin. It's not really profit. We’re just trying to cover the labor cost, and we're committed to paying people a living wage (not just minimum wage), and then the costs of electricity and fuel for the trucks. It's been a wonderful opportunity to try and improve upon what we've been doing. To change a broken system to the benefit of both farmers and consumers. That's what it's all about.

It’s such a great story that Sun Fresh was ready and able to offer access to infrastructure that was so lacking, like cold storage and transportation. That was really key that you were able to come together.

Until that moment, we had no access to either. So, we had this wonderful luck. I mean, it was a horrible experience that I would never wish on any of us, to have a pandemic. But we had no choice. We were in it. So, yeah, we made the best of it.

Maui fish-25_websize.jpg — John Dobovan photographed by Angie Diaz

These are magical words you are speaking. You haven't operated at anything more than a 27% margin and committed to paying a living wage? This is the dream. Everybody always says Hawai’i farmers can't compete with imports because our labor and overhead costs are too high. Are you subsidized? How are you able to do it?
That's a very excellent question. This is the precise problem with trying to start a Food Hub in the way we've done it. We’re not breaking even yet. We are in terms of the little bit of paid labor we had and gasoline and truck rentals. But that depended on an all-volunteer workforce to pass out groceries and run the Hub. The half dozen of us who actually ended up running this thing for the last year, I got to tell you, these people are heroes. Some of them might put in hundreds of hours every month.
Keith Ranney, who's now our paid Executive Director, provided up to 40 hrs a week of free labor, which is insane. That's just not sustainable. Fortunately, we had some funding to get us started. Healey Foundation helped to cover some of our initial operational expenses. The County of Maui gave HFUU a $10,000 grant split between the Maui Food Hub and the Hāna Farmer's Market for software and initial operating expenses. Once we went independent, an individual put in $20,000 and The Frost Family Foundation came through with a grant that allowed us to hire Keith. Now we're approaching Maui County for funding to buy a truck and a van as we've grown.

Sun Fresh is getting to the point where they're getting their business back, they need the space back, and we need more room. They're not kicking us out by any means. They've been incredibly supportive, but it's clear to both sides that we need to find our own facility. So, we're shopping around for that. If the County grant goes through, we'll have enough funding to rent a space and build it out for at least a year, but we'll be looking for other charitable donations.

At our current size, we can cover the basic operating overhead, but not staff salaries and wages. We're going to have to grow substantially before we can really afford those things. Fortunately, we have been getting some incredible support from the community. We did over half a million in our first year, which is really good, but it needs to be several times that before we are genuinely self-supporting,

I think this was a dress rehearsal for what will eventually come in the future.

Were there other food system vulnerabilities exposed during this time?

We saw multiple vulnerabilities, and they continue. Inter-island shipping was somewhat tenuous. Young Brothers was going through upheaval, and they were talking about substantial rate increases or decreasing shipments. They shifted some of their shipping dates, which made it difficult for a lot of people. We saw shortages. We also saw panic buying and emptied out shelves. In my opinion, we were fortunate because this pandemic could have been way worse. The next one may well be; I think this was a dress rehearsal for what will eventually come in the future.

We are so dependent upon the outside world for our essential food supplies. So to me, this was an excellent wake-up call that we desperately need to become more self-sufficient, more self-reliant. That starts with food production, local food production. Many people are really aware that we have got to have adequate sources of locally produced food, that's essential. They were willing to put up with a lot of inconvenience and discomfort to support that process. I'm very gratified to see that.

I've noticed people offering each other a little bit more grace during this time. That's something I hope sticks around.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the federal government has always seen fit to, in my opinion, penalize people who are using SNAP to make it as difficult as possible. That needs to be addressed, sooner the better. Until then, we've got this horrible, complex system.

I saw that the Maui Hub went through the process to accept SNAP/ EBT for your customers. Can you talk about why that was important?

Well, very early on, it was very obvious to us that we had to accept SNAP and we worked really hard trying to find a way to do it online. Still, the federal government, the USDA that administers the SNAP program, simply has no mechanism for that to happen. So far, we've had to buy three of these SNAP card readers. We need more, and it's really complicated. We’ve got to shuffle them around.

They've got to move the SNAP machine from Central Maui to Kihei. There's another one that has to go from Upcountry down to Haiku. Another one goes to Lahaina. It requires somebody trained to use it, and it has to come back every week, as well. It's really complicated and cumbersome, and there is talk about eventually accepting SNAP online. It really should be. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the federal government has always seen fit to, in my opinion, penalize people who are using SNAP to make it as difficult as possible. That needs to be addressed, sooner the better. Until then, we've got this horrible, complex system. It took us a long time to get set up for SNAP and for the Da Bux program, that was Linda Love. She forced that through; she’s a bulldozer. She did a great job of making that happen.

John, what is your vision for the future? Are there positives changes, as result of the pandemic, that you want to stay in place as we grow through this?

At the Food Hub, we're deep in conversations regularly regarding the future of the hub. Because it's clear to me that when the pandemic eases up, people will be less enthusiastic about getting in their car and driving out to pick up a bag of produce. Sometime probably mid-May, we're going to initiate a home delivery service because our survey says there are still many people that want that.

Eventually, I really hope we're going to have a physical home. It will take some time and a lot of money, but I want to see the Hub fulfill its full promise. There are so many things that can work together synergistically. For example, it's hard for a farmer to afford a facility to process their raw products unless they’re a huge operation. Likewise, many big supermarket chains, Whole Foods, in particular, won't touch your produce unless it's gone through very stringent food safety steps because they've got to protect themselves.

My watercress, it's perfectly legal to sell, and even though Times and Foodland sell it, I can't sell it through Whole Foods. It has to go through a third-party certified commercial kitchen, and that's extremely expensive. Small farmers like me simply cannot afford that sort of facility. But if we hui'd up, and the Maui Hub could build a pretty large scale processing facility, now all the small farmers could bring their stuff in, get it processed, get it packaged, and make value-added products. The Maui Hub could serve as a distributor, as well. Then it becomes a valuable asset for the community and the farmers.

If we had that kind of space, the Hub could become a location where individuals can come in and pick up their stuff. One of the things that we're hearing from our customers is that they really like going to a farmer's market or a supermarket and being able to choose that specific piece of fruit or that specific head of lettuce. They can't do that through the Hub online, but if we had a physical space, it could be a year-round, physical farmer's market. So, over time, I really see the Maui Hub growing into a much greater presence in the community. That would fulfill our dream of changing the system.

I think it's going to go down as a real cautionary tale because, let's face it as bad as COVID is, it's nothing compared to some of the diseases that are out there.

How will this crisis be described in the history books of the future?

Oh boy. As a mess. We handled it poorly. I've heard figures as high as at least 400,000 people died needlessly, just because of misinformation and arrogance. I mean, we've had other times when this country faced a crisis. 9/11 was one, and World War II was another. In World War II, people voluntarily turned in all their metal pots and pans for the war effort; people were very supportive. This time around, for some reason, so many people were just adamant about their personal liberties and not paying any attention to the needs of others. So it’s been kind of ugly, honestly. We're lucky. Here in Hawaii, we haven't experienced too much of that. People are very community-minded here, but in the rest of the nation as a whole, I think there's a lot less of that.

A lot of people have died as a result of that, directly, I'd say. So, I think it's going to go down as a real cautionary tale because, let's face it as bad as COVID is, it's nothing compared to some of the diseases that are out there. Things like Ebola, West Nile Virus, and so on that are really deadly. If Ebola had ever gotten to the sort of ease of transmission that COVID has, we would've seen a billion people dead. Lots and lots, more people dead and it would've shut everything down. So, we dodged a huge bullet here, but rather clumsily.

If you want cold water in Hawaii, you gotta go up.

Maui fish-39_websize.jpg — Rainbow trout at Kulahaven Farms photgraphed by Angie Diaz

***I would like to talk about trout and watercress because it's so unique. How did you come to rainbow trout?***
Well, I've always loved trout. I used to go to the mainland every summer to go trout fishing or salmon or steelhead fishing in the fall. I've always loved the salmon species. When my buddy and I started our tilapia farm back on Oʻahu, I wanted to do trout right from the get-go, you know? Then about six months to a year in, I got a hold of the Chief Hydrologist for the State of Hawaii. I asked him, "So, how far down is the water?" He says, "About 400 feet." I thought, well, that's not so bad. I asked him, "So what's the temperature?" He said, "68 degrees." I said, “I want 65 degrees. What if we go lower?" He says, "It gets hotter. We’re on a geothermal plume." So, he tells me, "If you want cold water in Hawaii, you gotta go up." That was a big eye-opener.
By 2013, in the back of my mind, I had the idea of finding a place where I could raise trout in cold water. Mid to late 2013, we lost the lease on our property when the owner died. He was a wonderful man, he gave us a great deal, but he had never signed a lease. So, we were stuck. So, I told my buddy, "You've got your family here and it's just me. There's not enough income for two families. So, I'm going to head over to Maui and do trout." By then, I'd already contacted some friends that lived up here in Keokea, that had a big cistern on their property.

I asked them to drop a bucket down in the cistern and tell me the temperature. They pulled it up and said, “59 degrees.” Perfect! So, I decided to move to Maui, and at the end of 2013, I moved and spent a couple of years building a test system. First, I had to learn how to hatch trout, which took a while. Then I had to build a test aquaponics system.

Luckily, I had gone back to school. I realized that I simply didn't have enough education to be a commercial farmer, that this is science, not heart.

I should note that I had put everything remaining to my name into my farm in Waimanalo. So, when I moved to Maui, I was penniless. Luckily, I had gone back to school. I realized that I simply didn't have enough education to be a commercial farmer, that this is science, not heart. So, I started taking classes with no real idea of getting a degree but just because I wanted the knowledge. So, when I moved to Maui, I enrolled at UH Maui College and finished my ag degree there. They've got an excellent ag program and I built my initial trout hatchery with my student loans.

Then I got a small investment from an angel investor and then another, and I built out my test system. I tried about 15 or 16 different crops to find what worked well with trout and finally narrowed it down to a trout and watercress. When I first started doing aquaponics, a lot of other farmers on Oʻahu were all doing the same products. They're all producing tilapia and Mānoa lettuce. I said to myself, "Well, how much tilapia and Manoa lettuce can we possibly eat?" At some point, it'd be coming out of our ears, and I wanted to do something different. That was really the emphasis for moving towards trout.

I started planning this farm when I was still taking aquaculture classes at Windward Community College back in 2013. So, I came here with an idea of what I wanted to do. It took me a couple of years, but I finally built a successful test system. Successful to the extent that I was able to hatch trout eggs, rear them up, put them into an aquaponic system, grow them up, and raise produce. My initial chef, Chef Perry from Mama's Fish House, tracked me down and bought all my trout for the next couple of years. Mana Foods was buying all my watercress. So, now I had accounts, and I had a product. So, it was time to build a commercial facility. The farm I have right now was the smallest system I could design that I felt could break even or make a profit. Because I always want to make my mistakes on a small scale.

Maui fish-72_websize.jpg — John Dobovan photographed by Angie Diaz

The farm I have right now was the smallest system I could design that I felt could break even or make a profit. Because I always want to make my mistakes on a small scale.
I knew that when you scale up, things change. I knew when I blew it up to commercial scale, there were going to be flaws, and sure enough, there were. It took two years to get the system built. Because I, again, I had very little capital. So, it was mostly one or two young guys working with me to build this thing and me. Then we had to operate it for two and a half years before we actually made it work, successfully. I had to keep building, and rebuilding, and correcting, and testing, and finding what didn't work, and finding what worked, and so on. So, it's been quite an adventure. This past week, in fact, was the very first week we've done better than break even. We actually made a profit this past week, which was really gratifying. We sold over 500 pounds of food, between watercress and trout. So, something like 550 pounds of food last week. That's off a third of an acre by the way.

Congratulations! I didn't grow up eating watercress. I still don't know that I've ever eaten it. Do you know the backstory as to how watercress became such a special leafy green for people in Hawai’i?

Firstly, you have to understand watercress is one of the most nutritious greens that you can eat. There's a thing called the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, typically called ANDI, and it identifies leafy greens. Then, it ranks them based on calories versus nutrient density. It goes from zero to a thousand, and there were only four leafy greens that scored a perfect score of a thousand -- kale, mustard greens, swiss chard, and watercress. So, local folks have known this for generations.

Watercress was a medicinal herb thousands of years ago. Before people started eating it as food, it was considered medicine, and it’s been shown effective against at least four different cancers with modern research. It neutralizes some of the carcinogens in tobacco. If I remember correctly it’s extremely high in vitamin K. It's just one of the best foods you can eat, and local folks have always known this. The problem with watercress is that it doesn't last very well on a shelf. It doesn't travel very well. On the mainland, folks don't eat it because it's not grown locally and you can't really ship it very far. So, here in Hawaii, around 20 years ago, Hawaiʻi farms were producing something like 1.2 million pounds of watercress a year. We had a much lower population. Over time, a lot of those farms have shrunk or gone out of business. I think in the last couple of years, it's been maybe half of that.

In order to thrive as a farmer, you have to be a price maker. You can't be a price taker.

Maui fish-47_websize.jpg — Watercress at Kulahaven Farms, photo by Angie Diaz

I was looking for high-quality products that I felt really good about, with high nutritional value, that would pair well together. Trout being a pretty high pH, watercress can tolerate a high pH, very few terrestrial crops can. I was looking for relatively easy to cultivate that had very few pest issues and relatively low labor costs. Maybe, most importantly, that I wasn't going to put some other farmer out of business if I scaled up. There really isn't that much watercress produced here on Maui, and very little of it is organically certified. So, we developed our unique niche here.
Trout is one of the most nutritious fish you can eat, according to Monterrey Seafood Watch. It's got their highest rating. Three ounces of trout has 21 grams of protein, which is like your whole daily allotted requirement. You could survive on that if you had to. It's got twice the daily recommendation by the World Health Organization for omega-3 fatty acids. So, it's really, very high quality. So, high in nutrition and high in protein.
So, those two foods I feel terrific about. Because they're unique, I can get the price that I have to do. Buddy Nichols, the Farm Service Loan Manager for USDA, had a wonderful presentation at the Farmer's Union meeting a year or two ago. He was saying that in order to thrive as a farmer, you have to be a price maker. You can't be a price taker. You can't just go and have the market dictate what it's going to pay you. You have to go in and say, look, this is what I need. Then you've got to find a market where you can get that.

When I designed this farm, I found places that would pay what I have to charge in order to make a profit. Because I had unique products, I was able to find places like Mama's Fish House and other restaurants here on the island and now, through the Food Hub where I can charge what I have to charge to cover the cost. There's a demand for them because they're unique products.

I didn't realize your watercress was certified organic.

Honestly, we use way fewer pesticides than pretty much any organic farm. I mean, organic production doesn't mean you don't use pesticides. Organic farmers routinely use things like BT, bacillus thuringiensis, or they'll use insecticidal soap, or they will use neem oil. Neem oil or insecticidal soap would kill all my fish, so I don't use any of those things.

We’ve used only two insecticides or pesticides the entire time we've been in operation, for five years. We've used a fungal-based insecticide against the false chinch bug or seed bug. We've used a thing from a company called Monterey that reduces cercospora, which is a fungal disease carried by rain droplets. But we use those very sparingly. For the most part, we depend upon natural predators: insects, spiders, lacewings, ladybugs, and so on, to control the pest populations. We work very closely with nature on that. So, we really try to emulate a natural system to the greatest extent possible. I use insecticides only as a very last resort.

What about rat lungworm? Is this aquaponic system rat lungworm proof or a safer way to grow greens?

Electrified tape serves as a slug deterrent at Kulahaven Farms, photo by Angie Diaz

That's an excellent question and a very valid concern. I'm very fortunate. I about three and a half years ago, a young woman came to me to just to volunteer. She was out of work, looking for something to do, and she ended up working for me ever since. Her name is Aimee Greenwood. She's now become my Vice President, and she's becoming a partner in the farm. She'd been on Big Island for about nine years, developed a case of Rat Lungworm there, and it just about killed her. She said she left the Big Island because of that, she didn't want to be exposed to it again. So, she's my science officer, now. We're very concerned about Rat Lungworm.
One of the advantages of an aquaponic system such as ours, all of our watercress is grown in beds that are raised about three feet off the ground. They're up on stilts. The very first thing we did, was to put four-inch and now eight-inch copper bands around every single upright, pipe, and supporting structure. Snails and slugs don't like to cross the copper because it'll give them an electrical shock. The copper interacts with their body chemistry to create a mild electrical current. It's not a hundred percent foolproof. We have found occasionally, a snail on our grow beds. What we've done in that case, is we just rip everything out, sterilize the bed, and replant. and it's very costly to us.

About two years ago, I think it was Lorrin Pang, the head of the Maui County Health Department, who pioneered a study using electrified tape, which they use in China. It's four narrow bands of very thin stainless steel that you electrify with a small current, a six volt DC. They use this in snail farms in China, where they're actually raising sales for human consumption. They use this as a fence to keep the snails inside the farm and the snails will not cross this electrified barrier. So, we're now installing that on all of our grow beds as a secondary, as a backup, foolproof way to keep them out of the beds. So it's something we are very careful about.

Thank you for I know I’ve gone off track but thank you for indulging my curiosity. I need to integrate more local greens into my diet.

It's something that's really important to us. Well, we eat the watercress here too. I don't want to get Rat Lung and I don't want any of my people getting Rat Lung. So, we thought it was something we have a vested interest in, plus I think it's a really bad business model to kill your customers.

What do you want people to know? How can they help improve our food security?

The most critical thing is we all have to buy local and that's going back to what you asked me before, about what kind of lessons can be drawn. It's really clear. If at all possible if it's available locally, buy it locally. Yes, it costs a little more, but we saw what happened when the tourist industry shut down, everyone lost their jobs, right? I mean, a lot of people did because we have nothing else going on.

Here in Hawai’i, we're spending $3 billion a year to import food from around the world. Actually, if you add in the tourist market, it's $6 billion a year, and that's all money that gets sucked right out of the state. That $3 billion comes out of our pockets. It goes through the big supermarkets and those chains that are not locally owned, the money goes right back out of Hawai’i. The same thing happens with the tourists of course. People come here, they spend lots of money, the profits get pulled out of Hawaii, and we're being suctioned. The money is just being Hoovered out of our pockets. So, the more we can do locally and circulate that money inside the economy, the better.

$3 billion comes out of our pockets. It goes through the big supermarkets and those chains that are not locally owned, the money goes right back out of Hawai’i.

Yet less than half a percent of the state budget goes to local agriculture. Much of that often goes to some of the biggest farms, not the little guys, so that needs to change.

Like the Maui Hub, for example. We got some donations last year, as I explained, and all that money was turned right back into the local economy and circulates back and the money goes to the farmers. The farmers then use it to pay their suppliers and pay their bills. All of which pretty much stays in the local economy. The more we can do that, the more self-sustaining we're going to be. Self-sustainability is not just about growing food. It's about having a vibrant, thriving, local economy. The more we can support each other, the more support we get and it's like giving love, the more love you give, the more you get, right? The same thing with circulating our dollars. So, that's really critically important.

As far as what farmers need, we need a lot more support. There's so much talk about sustainability and I mean, it's written in the state constitution that we need to support agriculture. Yet less than half a percent of the state budget goes to local agriculture. Much of that often goes to some of the biggest farms, not the little guys, so that needs to change.

We need to grow more farmers. I'm on a personal mission to find people, young or middle-aged. I mean, I was 68 when I started, just people who want to become farmers who want to grow food and want to provide for our communities. I would like to build hundreds of farms on the scale that I've just done. Put a new farmer in each one, give them a tiny house and a living wage and a share of the profits, so they've got an incentive to work really hard, and we can build giant co-ops to produce food.

Eventually, that farmer can, once they're a commercial farmer, (after three years, they're considered a commercial farmer) they can go to USDA loan office, buy out their own farm and have a decent living. We can build a whole network of farms that together, can either grow our own feed or import feed at a much better rate. We can aggregate produce and have much, much bigger clout in the marketplace in terms of marketing and where we can distribute. We can feed a lot more people. The more of that we can do, the better. The more new farmers we can get going, we can get them on land, and stop turning good ag lands into housing. That's the other thing that just breaks my heart.

The more new farmers we can get going, we can get them on land, and stop turning good ag lands into housing. That's the other thing that just breaks my heart.

Some of our very best ag, we saw this on Oʻahu. I lived on O’ahu, starting in 1966, back when the whole central Oʻahu was all sugarcane and pineapple. As they phased those out, they said, "We're gonna put this little subdivision up in this place called Mililani,” up in the middle of the cane fields. Then pretty soon, "Well, we got the subdivision going now. We need a supermarket and a school and more homes." Pretty soon the whole central part of the island, was all housing. More recently, some of the best ag land in the state was turned into housing and the farmers were moved off that wonderful ag land, given substandard land that's less inconvenient for housing. What are these people going to eat? We put all these people in homes, but they're not going to have any food. So, we just need more support for agriculture across the board, funding and marketing, distribution, all that sort of stuff.

Over time, I think we can create a lot more farmers and a lot more jobs for farmers. Also, I'd like to see more technology there. There's a lot of work these days with robotics and I think that the more we can do to farm smarter, not harder, it would be wonderful.

Last but not least, who have you been inspired by, during this past year?

Oh gosh. There are so many heroes out there and they're so quiet. You don't hear from them, all those farmers out there that have been going to work. I mean, a lot of these, especially the smaller farmers are really frontline workers. They're out there harvesting before dawn and then they're taking their stuff to market. I've got a neighbor doing that, right here. He's about my age, not a young guy and he's been doing that all through the pandemic. So, there are lots of heroes out there and I'm just gratified to see the way that Maui has rallied to make it through this time, that would have to include the core group that created the Maui Hub: Cindy Giebink, Keith Ranney, Autumn Ness, Michele Holcomb, and Linda Love.